Gray-white metal m.p. 1077±5 ºC; 1971±9 ºF b.p. 1791 ºC; 3256 ºF density (α) 7.520 (β) 7.40 g/cc; (α) 469.458 (β) 461.97 pound/cubic foot	memory peg
	1879 François Lecoq de Boisbaudran, France
	samarskite, mineral named after В.Е. Самарский-Быховец (V.E. Samarskij-Byhovec)

In 1839, the German mineralogist Gustav Rose (1798–1873) described a dense, black mineral with high luster, similar to ytterbite (later gadolinite, cf. Yttrium), which was found near Miass (Chelyabinsk region) in the Il'menskeye mountains (Southern Ural). He named it uranotantal (уранотантал). Seven years later, in 1846, the Moscow chemist R. I. Herman renamed this mineral ittro-ilmenit (иттроильменит), since, in his opinion, it contained a new element Ilmenium. Later, the research of C. W. Blomstrand and others, especially of Marignac, proved that Ilmenium was a mixture of Niobium and Tantalum (cf. Niobium).

In his analysis of "uranotantal", Heinrich Rose (1795-1864), professor of chemistry in Berlin and brother of Gustav Rose, found that there was no Tantalum present, but Niobium. Therefore both proposed names for the name mineral were incorrect. In his conclusion, Rose wrote in 1847:

«Я предлагаю изменить название уранотантал в самарскит, в честь полковника Самарского, по благосклонности которого я был в состоянии производить над этим минералом все изложенные наблюдения»

[translation: I propose to change name uranotantalum into samarskite, in honour of Colonel Samarskij, on benevolence of whom I was able to get this mineral and to analyze it]. (note)

The new earths in samarskite etc.

In 1878-80 finding new elements in samarskite was a hot issue under chemists. Several of their reports are found in the weekly Comptes rendus of the French Académie des sciences:

1. 22 July 1878: the American chemist J. Lawrence Smith (1818-1883), researching samarskite found in North-Carolina, announced a new element, which he named Mosandrum, honouring the Swedish chemist Carl Gustav Mosander (note).

   22 October 1878: Delafontaine reports that Mosandrum does not exist (note).
   28 October 1878: Delafontaine affirmed mosandra to be identical with terbia (see his table at Terbium) (note).
   In 1886 Lecoq de Boisbaudran proved mosandra was a mixture or Terbium and Marignac's Yα (Holmium).

2. 14 October 1878: the French chemist Marc Delafontaine (1837-1911), working in Chicago, wrote that he worked for two years research with samarskite, and has found a fourth new earth, which he named Philippium, after the chemist and physician Philippe Plantamour (1816-1898) of Geneva, his benefactor, friend and student of Berzelius, who translated his yearly reports (note). But, because his laboratory is destroyed in the great fire of Chicago he was not able to continue his research.

   Later, Philippium was thought to be identical with Holmium.

3. 22 October 1878: Marignac reported the discovery of Ytterbium (note).
   

4. 28 October 1878: Delafontaine reports another new metal found in samarskite from North Carolina, this time he gave this element the name Decipium, after the Latin "decipiens", which means "deceptive, misleading" (note). According to Delafontaine, samarskite contains the earths yttria, erbia, terbia, philippia, decipia, thoria, didymia, and ceria.

   16 August 1880: after spectroscopical analysis, Soret found that Decipium was identical with Lecoq's Samarium (note). Later was shown that Decipium was a mixture of Samarium and other rare-earth elements, mainly Neodymium and Praseodymium.

5. 28 July 1879: François Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838-1912) analyzed samarskite and noted that another earth precipitated before Didymia when ammonium hydroxide was added. Spectral analysis showed two new blue lines, differend from the lines of Decipium. Lecoq called the new earth Samaria after its mineral source. The name for the element within became Samarium. (note). To Vasilij Evgrafovič Samarskij-Byhovec, a rather unknown person, went the honour of being the first individual to give his name to a chemical element.

   

   Despite the suggested chemical symbol of Sm, until the 1920s often Sa was used (note). Later was shown that Lecoq's Samarium was a mixture of Samarium and Europium. Eugène-Anatole Demarçay (1852-1904) separated it in 1901.

6. 19 April 1880: Marignac reports that he has separated two new earths from samarskite. He indicated them provisionally with Yα and Yβ (note).

   16 August 1880: after spectroscopical analysis, Soret found that Yβ was identical with Samarium (note). In 1886 Lecoq de Boisbaudran produced a more pure form of Yα and named it Gadolinium.

Via spectroscopical analysis Sir William Crookes described in 1886 an element Sδ, which later proved to be Samarium.

John and Gordon Marks suggested in 1994 the name Odinium (Od), after Odin, in the Norse mythology the supreme god of war and poetry, knowledge, and wisdom (cf. plutonium after Pluto) and for its tyrian (purple) coloured salts. The Marks brothers found the old names ugly and confusing. They offered alternative names that are equivalent contemporary (at the time and place of discovery) metaphors, both more euphonious and more memorable (note).

See also: Chronological list of discovery of the rare earths, their names in different languages etc. on the Yttrium page

All these discoveries of new elements within a few years (cf. also Niobium) caused some comments of unbelief. That of the science editor of the American magazine the Manufacturer and builder, published July 1880, follows:

" NEW (?) METALLIC ELEMENTS.

While on tine one hand the researches of physicists are accumulating facts to demonstrate that the so-called chemnuical elements are not essentially simple bodies, the attention of chemists of late appears to have been chiefly directed to the work of discovering and adding more elements to the already formidable list. The number of alleged discoveries of this kind announced during the past year or so, is entirely without parallel. As nearly as we recall them, we have had announced to us —Samarium, Ytterbium, Philippium, Decipium, Holmium, Thulium, Mosandrium, Scandium, Norwegium, Vesbium, Ouralium, and several others that have not been dignified with names.

Many of these have been named simply upon the very slender evidence of «absorption spectra,» and none, so far as we know, have been isolated. And so rapidly have announcements of these discoveries followed each other, that, as some of the investigators were working with the same (or similar) material, it is almost certain that several of the new announcements have been duplicated. The subject has been so much complicated by the great number of «preliminary annnouncements,» that chemists have ceased their efforts to decide on the genuineness of most of them, and have, by mutual consent, settled down to wait quietly umutil some acknowledged master of the subject shall have thoroughly overhauled the mass of complicated and often conflicting evidence that has been published, and sifted the wheat from the chaff. While it is certain that some of these alleged discoveries are without substantial foundidation, and that some have been duplicated, it is equally certain that others will be found to be real acquisitions to science.

Late reports in the French journals advise us that Delafontaine, a chemist of acknowledged eminence, whose name is prominenthy identified with several of these discoveries, has undertaken the laborious task of examining the claims of these new applicants for admission to the list of elements. He announces his belief that the earth's Ytterbia, Decipia and Philippia, are real additions to science, and considers as doubtful a number of others whose existence has been affirmed purely on the strength of absorption spectra. The examination which Delafontaine has instituted will probably be taken up by others, and we may soon hope to have the merits of these alleged discoveries properly estimated by the test of severe criticism." (note).

The Manufacturer and Builder, and other journals, are on-line available on The Nineteenth Century in Print: the Making of America in Periodicals.

Joke

The discovery of new elements had become in the 1880s quite a mass phenomenon. A certain Kosman, hardly known to the scientific world, reported in a chemical journals that he had succeeded in detecting two new elements at once. And he gave them the pompous names of Kosmium and Neokosmium. It soon became apparent that the "discoverer" of kosmium and neokosmium had just been making fun of this discovery epidemic. The article was a kind of April-Fool joke. (note).

Further reading:

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Heny M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 667-699.
• Seltene Erden. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, 8. Aufl.; System-Nummer 39 (1938).
• Editor's Scientific Record. Harper's new monthly magazine Vol. 58, No. 345, February 1879, p. 472 (on-line)